Everything That Glitters
by theUglySpirit
Summary: Tim and Duane went inside for a beer around 1:30, just in time for Buck to put the receiver back in its cradle and turn around to find them standing on the other side of the bar- two available guys with available cars who might be willing to do something stupid for very little money or maybe just for liquor. Language, illegal substances.
1. Chapter 1

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders, Buck, and Tim Shepard. Duane is mine- or rather, he's an homage to a dearly departed relative of mine who is nothing like the Duane I use in my stories. I just like the name.

I'm reposting this. I got five chapters in last time and got distracted. The land of never-ending winter has afforded me some more inspiration, and now I'm back at it.

**Everything That Glitters**

One-

Tim and Duane got their break when a surprise spring blizzard blew through and district court got cancelled for the day.

They spent all of Monday morning digging their cars out of the snow in front of Buck's. They went inside for a beer around 1:30, just in time for Buck to put the receiver back in its cradle and turn around to find them standing on the other side of the bar- two available guys with available cars who might be willing to do something stupid for very little money or maybe just for liquor.

"Either of you want to make a run up to the Kansas side?" Buck asked them.

"How much?" Shepard- the eternal businessman.

Duane, more single-minded of the two, was not to be deterred from his original mission: "Give me a beer, will ya?"

Buck poured a beer into a glass and said to whichever one of them was listening, "I need someone to make a run up to Independence, bring me back some 'shine. I'll pay."

He was loathe to say that last part, but then it was a shitty day outside and the roads were likely to be shitty as well.

"How much?" Shepard, again, of course.

"I don't know," Buck groaned, handing Duane the beer. "How much is it worth to you?"

He turned away so that neither boy would see him trying to work it over in his own head. He knew the figures were flying in Shepard's: this much for gas, this much for the waste of an afternoon that could be spent sleeping or catting around, this much for the potential danger incurred.

Duane wasn't thinking about any of these things- that was Buck's guess as he looked at the nudie calendar on the wall behind his bar. Duane'd had just about had enough of Shepard and gangs and everything else. He'd gone to Vietnam a year and a half ago to avoid doing time in the joint and had come back more philosophical than anyone could comfortably admit. He didn't have to admit it- it was written all over what had once been a smirking and otherwise vacant face.

He was partially deaf now. His ears rang all the time. Buck couldn't remember who told him that- maybe it was Shepard. Duane had lost a good portion of his hearing to the artillery guns on the Ticonderoga.

"I didn't know we were having sea battles with the Vietamese," Buck had said…yes, it was to Shepard.

"We ain't. Yet," Shepard had replied. "They were just practicing wherever the hell he was stationed or docked or whatever…north of San Francisco."

"So he didn't go to 'Nam?" Buck had asked.

"Yeah, he went, but he stayed on the boat. They sat there in the South China Sea and had causalities brought to them. He says he never got shot at, but he saw enough boys shot. He knows how to patch someone up, I'd guess."

"And he's deaf?"

"He ain't deaf. He can hear. Just his ears ring."

So now Duane's ears rang all the time, as Buck understood it. Sometimes, he recoiled and let the ringing sound and his thoughts overtake him, something that never would have happened before he took to the Service. Duane would be the first to tell you that he wasn't exactly a thinker.

"What about you, Mitchell? You feel like taking a drive?"

Duane shrugged and drank his beer. Either he hadn't heard or he was thinking about it. Either way, Buck didn't want to wait. He appealed to Tim.

"Does he feel like a drive, you think?"

"How the hell should I know how he's feeling?" Tim said.

He waited for Duane to finish his swallow of beer. Tim was a good businessman. He was sly and heartless when it was required, but he also knew how to talk to people in a way that made them feel good. When he prompted Duane, he asked the question so that Duane would be able to guess what they were talking about without anyone having to repeat themselves: "You think they got 75 plowed out?"

"Worth a look," Duane said, which meant he was agreeable to the journey.

Buck sighed with relief. Duane was bigger than Tim. Everyone in Tulsa knew Tim and knew to not to tangle with him, but outside of town and across the state line, he was just a small- almost mousey- guy with a scar that suggested that he may've gotten his ass kicked at least once.

Duane was built like a brick shithouse. He'd lost weight on that boat. Said they all did. They all got dysentery or something awful in the harbor off Hong Kong ("I bet that's what it was," Buck had mused to himself). Said their uniforms hung on them like rags on scarecrows by the time they pulled out of the South China Sea and headed for home.

Once safely back in civilization, Duane had taken up dry-walling. He had dry-walled his way back to from California, and now he was built like a he was made from the stuff. It was Duane who Buck preferred to send up to Kansas to a waiting carload of thugs.

"What time?" Duane asked.

This time it was Buck who missed the question. He was turned back to the nudie calendar, counting the days since he'd last spoke to the boys in Independence. They'd been busted and were low on product. They'd made him wait a week longer than usual. Buck guessed they'd be anxious for cash now, too. He didn't know if this boded well or poorly for Duane.

"What time, Merril?" Duane asked again. "What time I got to be up there?"

"Just before last light," Buck said. He was still enough of a cowboy that he told his time by horses and their habits- when they wanted to be fed, how long it took them to roam to the edge of their tether, when they turned back from their wanderings and wanted to be fed again.

He turned back to Tim and Duane. Tim was all City; he had no idea what time was last light. Before the sunlight faded, the streetlights and the bar lights would come on. There was no "last light" in Tim's world. His days and his nights were interchangeable.

This was another funny thing Buck had heard about Duane, though: born in Tulsa, but his ma took off from their dad for a while and took her sons- Duane and Chris- with her to live with her parents back on some farm. He was a kid then, but Duane had done some farm time. There was a snowball's chance he had a clue what time "last light" was.

"I got something to do first," Duane said. "I'll take off from there. You got a piece?"

"You going to need one?" Buck said. In truth, he'd been hoping Duane would ask. He didn't want to introduce the idea that it might be necessary to take a gun up to meet the boys in Independence.

Duane- again, unlike the Duane they'd known before he went on the boat- was a step ahead of him there: "You tell me."

"Couldn't hurt," Buck said. He reached under the bar and handed his own .45 over to Duane. Duane took it, flipped the cylinder open to see that it was loaded, flipped it closed again.

"See you on the other side," he said, clapping Shepard on the back as he walked away from the bar.

"Yeah, that one's on me," Buck said, referring to the beer that Duane had made no move to pay for.

Duane walked out the door. He didn't seem to hear.


	2. Chapter 2

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

**Everything That Glitters**

Two-

Darry Curtis could always find something to be mad about, but he hadn't been this angry in a long time. Probably not since the last time he'd seen his sister. She'd been gone nearly a year and a half, and plenty had happened in the time in between that could have tempered Darry's opinion of her or even made him want to see her again.

But not like this. Not when she was pulling this kind of shit- still finding ways to usurp him, sneak around him, hell- dig a burrow beneath him if she had to. And to what end? To the never-ending end of pissing him off.

She'd done it this time by writing a letter, not to him, but to Ponyboy. Two letters, the first Pony was only bringing him now that the second had arrived. Darry didn't need to ask about the postmarks to know now that she was getting closer. If he'd been a believer in that psychic, mindreading bullshit, Darry might have admitted to being able to sense her as she drew nearer to Tulsa.

Ponyboy brought him the latest letter and the preceding one. If the second letter hadn't come, he would have kept the first to himself.

"What the hell for?" Darry asked him.

"I liked it. It sounded cool, like comforting. It meant she was alive, plus it was addressed to me. It's mine."

Darry wrinkled his nose. His back was to Ponyboy and so he could mimic his brother's _it's mine_ unseen. He read the postcard and he could see why Pony would like it. Darry didn't like it one bit. He knew her and he could about guess the mood she was in when she wrote it. She was in a good mood, but that would give way to a better mood, and then a partying mood, and then eventually what she described as like standing on the platform with two trains running past on either side. The police called it "incorrigible", the doctors called it "hysteria" and then "mania". Darry knew it when he saw it, whatever it was called, and it always meant his world was about to come crashing all to shit.

The first letter had been mailed- if not written- in New Orleans. She was a long damned way from Beloit, Kansas when she wrote it:

_I'm trying to read a poem, but every time I sit down and try to read, this girl starts talking to me. _

_So, I get up and pretend to get something from across the room, and I hope that she'll have forgotten me when I sit down again. _

_She doesn't. She has something she just has to say and only to me. _

_And I keep thinking, "Don't you get that I don't give a shit about you? I'm trying to read this poem." _

_My heart beats hard inside my shirt whenever I sit down to write to you, little brother. _

_I've always been afraid of saying the wrong things. _

_I don't know why it matters now. _

_I know, deep down, that nothing I say is going to be the right thing if it's written from a thousand miles away._

_Maybe this girl- the one who wants to tell me something so bad- doesn't respect books. _

_Maybe she's one of those people who can do many things at once, and she doesn't get that I can't. _

_I can only do one thing at once, and I can't read a poem from a book while she's talking. _

_Maybe she respects a pen and paper. _

_Maybe if she sees me in action then she'll shut up because I'll look like I'm doing something._

_If only she knew, right? _

_All I'm writing is "I'm sorry" over and over again, using different words but saying the same thing like I'm saying it in different languages. _

_It doesn't matter. _

_I can write it over a hundred times and it will always be just as ineffectual as when I started. _

_It takes more effort to read a poem out of a book or listen to a stranger tell me about what I can plainly see on the street outside this window._

Darry grumbled a curse to himself and then said out loud to Ponyboy:

"You know, she imagines a closer relationship with you because you're younger and she thinks…Christ, I can't explain how she thinks."

He unfolded the second, more recent letter. At least she bothered to write it like a letter this time. That it looked so much more normal was deceptive. He didn't need to read farther than a few lines to know that she was standing on the platform with the two trains running.

_I met a guy- a professor, or not quite. He's a graduate student, so he wants to be a professor. He's allowed to teach, but no one calls him Doctor yet. He says he studies America. Whatever. He called us a subculture- the greaser subculture. I asked if he meant that our culture was below the others, like submarine or subterranean. He says, no, more like we were within something else. I said that made sense; most of the people I knew from the old neighborhood acted like they were trapped. He said not like that either, and that's when I felt sure that he was full of shit. He wanted to tell me all about us, stuff he'd read in books and seen in pictures._

_He said we liked rockabilly music and souped-up cars. This is true. What about Robert Frost? I asked him. Is liking Robert Frost one of the characteristics? Because my little brother likes him. _

_I've never heard about Robert Frost, he said._

_Seriously? He's a poet. He was, anyway. Just packed it in a couple of years ago…_

_I know who he is, but I've never read of him being associated with the greaser subculture._

_Oh, he is, I told the graduate student. Greasers like Robert Frost- at least where I'm from. It's the whole "Road Not Taken" thing. They dig that._

_I'd never heard that, he said. I could tell he didn't like me. He'd thought he did at first. He liked looking at me, but when I opened my mouth then it was all over. That's how it always seems to go with me. You know that._

_Some things I learned from an American Studies graduate student about the greaser subculture: we exist all over the world. In England, they call us rockers. That's kind of sweet, huh? _

_The rest of the world sees us as throw-backs. Wearing amped-up versions of the same clothes that went out ten years ago. Professing to love our old cars, never having anything new. It's because we're also part of another subculture- the lower class. We can't afford anything new, so we sell it that we love the old stuff. Maybe we do, some of it. And maybe some of it is an act. I hate hot rollers, but that's just between you and me. _

_What else? _

_He tried to sell me later on the idea that Robert Frost wasn't one of us, so what did I care about him? Do you know how many farms that guy owned? He asked me._

_Well he was still a farmer then, I said. I never knew any rich farmers._

_The graduate student said I was wrong on that._

_He had a lot of crazy people in his family, I said. I can identify with that. His aunties, I've heard- a couple of them got locked up. His wife had problems. One of his kids committed suicide. _

_A lot of crazy people in your family? The grad. Student asked._

_Just me, I said. After that, he left me alone and I didn't have to hear his ideas about greaser subculture anymore._

_So, I'm still not making friends. It doesn't seem to matter where I live. I'm mean and I say mean things. Was I mean to you? I hope not. I hope I was taking good care of you, even as I was running my mouth. _

_Don't worry. This isn't a suicide note. I'm feeling good today. On the days when I don't feel good, I can't write anything. I just sit there. Or lay there, curled up on my bed like a baby that can't get born. I'm sure it's completely inappropriate to tell you this, but I'll never write a note. I won't have any words on the day when I finally pack it in. I'll just disappear. I'll already be so dead in my thoughts that even I won't be entirely sure how it happened. _

_I'm sorry I said that. I'm sorry I'm still alive to write you anything, little brother. I know I'm supposed to come back and be helpful and take up the torch and be like mom. You know that will never happen, right? I'm still around and someday I might make it home, but I'll never be like her. You're just a kid, and you deserve a mom. I bet you miss her terribly. I'll just disappoint you if I show up. I'll pick up the torch in the yard on my way to the front door and burn the house down with it. _

_You can read a postmark, so you know where I am. If you read the last postmark- or if we have some kind of cosmic, psychic familial connection the way some people claim- you know that I'm closer than when I wrote the last time. If I pass you over and write again from some place further east or north, then you'll know that I took the road not taken and saved you a lot of trouble._

_If I turn up on our doorstep with the torch, then I apologize. I will not make all the difference for you. I will be nothing but trouble, same as before. They did crazy things to me in the hospital, but crazy doesn't cancel out crazy. They didn't drive it out. My kind of crazy can hold its own. It's my version of the greaser subculture. The stuff inside my head is too tough to die. It's hanging on like those old cars and old clothes. _

"And you got this today?" Darry asked Ponyboy.

Ponyboy nodded. Darry glanced up at him. There were tears in his little brother's eyes. Darry would've put that girl's lights out for it if she had been there for him to do it.

"Where'd it come from?" He asked Ponyboy. "Where was the postmark?"

"Someplace called Marshall. In Texas."

"Well, bless her, she's coming in for a landing," Darry said.

"Can I have them back?" Ponyboy asked.

Darry handed the letters back to him. He caught himself before his knee-jerk reaction to tell his little brother to get to school slipped out and showed him for the basket case he was.

The City hadn't plowed the streets this far out from the center of town yet. Sodapop had dug out around the truck- a futile gesture given that the plows would just throw it all back again when they finally did make it out.

Nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait.


	3. Chapter 3

SE Hinton owns Darry Curtis.

**Everything That Glitters**

Three-

Duane felt a little sick to his stomach, but it put it up to not eating since early that morning and then drinking a beer on top of nothing. He knew the solution was to eat something solid, but he passed a ton of places on his way back into the neighborhood and nothing looked good. He figured he'd wait until he was on his way out of town. Maybe the beer would settle by then.

He drove to his own house- one with four rooms that had stood abandoned for a year and was a modest buy with a loan that he got for being a military veteran- and fed the cat. The cat had come with the house. Duane had never wanted a cat of his own; he didn't really like them, but the cat seemed to think the house was his, and maybe it was. It was waiting on the day Duane got the keys as though it had been waiting for a year since the previously owners had taken off.

The cat hurried ahead of Duane into the house, scolding him. Duane commented to the cat that it was worse than his mom.

"I'm an adult, you know. I can be out all night if I want," Duane said.

The cat chirped and waited while Duane prepared it a dish of bread soaked in milk.

Duane picked up the jacket he wore to work off the back of his sofa. He changed into his work boots as well, marveling at his own stupidity for accepting Buck's mission. Already, he was preparing to get himself stuck in the snow. In spite of his concerns, he told the cat he'd be back, picked up a canvas sack of wrenches off of a chair by the table, and went back out to his car.

The City had plowed the avenues, but not yet the streets. He had to stop around the corner from Darry Curtis' house and walk through the snow to get to Darry, who was out shoveling a walk.

He stopped shoveling when he heard Duane's footsteps. Duane looked back up and down the block, confused.

"I thought that was your house," he said, pointing.

"It is," Darry said. "This is just therapy. I had to get out of there. It was that or brain my little brother with the shovel."

Duane looked from Darry's house to the one in front of them. Darry had shoveled out half the block. Duane wondered what the little brother had done, but he didn't ask.

"I brought you these back," Duane said, raising the bag of wrenches. "Thanks, man. Promise you won't use 'em on your brother, alright?"

"Damnit, you're way ahead of me. You get that stove out then?"

Duane's new house had come complete with a set of appliances that hadn't been changed out since The Great War. The stove was a cast iron monstrosity and had been bolted to the floor with metric bolts. Duane had plans to take up the floor come spring, but he didn't want to do it just yet. He just wanted to get rid of the stove. He knew Darry from various work sights and from years before- playing Little League. He knew Darry would have metric wrenches.

"Yeah, piece of cake. Had to take her apart to get her out the door. Can't for the life of me figure how they got her in. Sold her for scrap. Now I got to go find myself a real stove."

Duane shook his head. He didn't intend to ever cook himself anything more complicated than canned soup, but still a stove seemed like a thing that an adult should have.

Darry concurred. "Yeah, got to have that. Someday, you'll bring a girl home and she'll see that big empty space in the kitchen…"

"…think I cook over a fire out back, or something."

"…and that'll be the end of it. You want a drink or something?"

Duane's stomach constricted again at the thought.

"No, thanks. I was on my way somewhere. I was just stopping by to drop these off."

"Where you headed?" Darry asked. His voice was hopeful. He was seeking an invitation, Duane could tell. The little brother must've done something awful.

"Up north," Duane said. "Up to no good. Doing a run for Buck Merril."

Darry shrugged. "You want some company? Or some back-up? What kind of assholes are we talking here?"

Duane grinned. "Kansas side. The kind of assholes who would do business with Buck, or the kind he'd do business with on the phone and then send someone else to deal with in person."

Duane waited for Darry to make a decision. Darry seemed to know what the trip would entail, although Duane couldn't imagine that he'd ever made a run himself. Everyone knew what kind of shady shit Buck Merril was tied up in. Maybe it was the space left by those missing teeth- secrets just seemed to spill out of his mouth.

"Hold on, I'll go get my wallet," Darry said. "I'll be right back."

"Leave your little brother be, you hear?"

"Yeah, he gets to live to see another day," Darry said, grinning as he jogged back down the block towards his own house.

At some point, not long after their Little League days, Duane and Darry had parted company. There were the couple of years when Duane and his brother went to Tahlequah to live with their grandparents, and when they returned to the neighborhood Duane had fallen in with a different caliber of friends. He liked Darry, though. He'd always secretly wished he could be part of a gang like Darry's instead of Tim Shepard's- a gang that seemed to exist for the purpose of circling the herd around Darry's little brothers.

Duane's brother was older and not welcome in any gang. Anyone who got to know Chris Baird and got past his slurred and faltering speech realized that he wasn't retarded or even remotely slow. Most people only heard him talk though, and didn't bother to listen to what Chris had to say. They said Chris had a stroke as a baby, although Duane had never heard of anyone but old people having strokes. Whatever the case, Chris never could talk right and he sort of dragged his left side when he walked. No one wanted to know anything more about it, but if they had- Duane could've told them that Chris was the smarter of the two brothers.

Still, Tim Shepard's gang was never going to devote itself to protecting Chris the way Darry's did to looking after his little brothers and that other shy, quiet one who died after the fire. Chris was better off where he was- back in Tahlequah with their grandmother. Duane didn't have any kind of good answer for why he didn't just go back there himself.

Darry was back, still carrying the shovel. One of the many things Duane liked about Darry Curtis- he was a planner. He thought things through. He wasn't even going to ask if Duane thought they'd plowed 75 yet; he'd just carry forth as though they hadn't.

"I'm never having kids," Darry said, swinging the shovel over his shoulder.

"Girls, maybe," Duane mused. "I'd like to have girls. Wouldn't have to worry about toughening them up."

Darry shook his head. "Had enough of girls, too. Had all I could take of girls."

Duane had forgotten that Darry had a sister. How could he forget- she was there with them in high school. She was pretty, favored the littlest brother more than she did Darry. Long blonde hair. She was compact and tanned and crazy. That's what he heard anyway, but he knew better than to take it at face value. Growing up with Chris had taught him that much.

"How long's she been gone now?" Duane asked.

"Since…shit, seemed like forever until this morning. Now it don't seem nearly long enough."

"She coming back?"

"Like a boomerang. Took it as far as she could go, and now she's wheeling around and coming back to mow us all down again."

Duane squinted ahead at his car. The sun was peeking through the clouds and glinting off of the windshield. He didn't say it aloud to Darry, but he remembered what the sister looked like now, and he figured he wouldn't mind being mowed down by a girl like that.

"Were you ever embarrassed by your brother?" Darry asked as they reached the car.

Duane thought about it. "I guess I was when I was little, until I had the words to explain him to people. Once I did, I didn't feel like I had to explain him anymore. Anyone who didn't get him could just fuck themselves as far as I was concerned. They didn't grow up with our old man, didn't know the shit Chris took from him. Anyone who ever thought_ I_ was a tough guy…shit, they had no idea."

After saying so much, Duane was relieved to have the minute or two of getting into the car and getting it started to put some silence been them and his sudden exposition.

He pulled the lever to pop the trunk and Darry tossed the shovel inside. He joined Duane inside the car, and said:

"I guess I ain't found the right words yet. I can't even explain her to my brothers, and they lived with her too."

"Well, what do they call it- whatever's wrong with her? I mean, my brother had a stroke, a brain bleed. If I tell people that part of his brain exploded- which is pretty much what it did- that sort of distracts them. I think they get caught up in trying to visualize that. Maybe it makes him sound tough, you know?"

"No such luck," Darry said, rubbing his temple. "There's nothing physically wrong with her…"

Again, Duane caught himself thinking _damned right about that_.

"…She's mentally unstable, which makes it sound like she's going to go Lizzie Bourden on us all in the night or something. She's not like that, she's just…hell, I don't know. You think Buck'll let us skim off a couple of jars? I'd like to start drinking heavily before she sets foot on Oklahoma soil again."

Duane grinned. From this point on, he figured, it was pretty much out of Buck's control. If it ever was to begin with. Buck's word for them- the guys from Independence- was "twitchy". Duane had also heard Buck describe certain horses as twitchy. Those were the horses, it was Duane's understanding, that you didn't turn your back on. Always watchful, always suspicious, the kind that would toss you into next week if they saw the wind blow in the grass and took it for a snake. Duane had been stuck on the Ticonderoga with a couple of guys like that. They were always worthless when the time came. Both lazy and agitated- an annoying and potentially lethal combination.

The sun was sinking and shadows were getting longer. It was about an hour and a half drive to Independence, and Duane figured they'd make Buck's time table of "last light" just fine. If the roads were halfway passable. He still needed to eat something.

"You hungry?" He asked Darry.

"Always." Darry grinned.

"I'm going to get a burger up here. You want one?"

"Yeah," Darry started digging in his back pocket for his wallet. Duane waved his hand to refuse it.

"And some coffee," Duane said. He could see the wind blowing the snow up into twisters just outside of town. "Makes me cold just to look at it."


	4. Chapter 4

SE Hinton owns Buck and his tavern.

**Everything That Glitters**

Four-

The phone on Buck's wall rang six times. Tim counted. On the sixth ring, when it became clear that Buck wasn't going to come running and Tim couldn't stand it anymore, he got up and reached over the bar. He pawed at the phone, dislodged the receiver and caught it swinging.

"Yeah?" He said.

The operator spoke. "I have a collect call for Mr. Buck Merril from the Montgomery County Jail. Do you accept the charges?"

"I ain't him," Tim told her. "He ain't here right now."

The operator asked him to hold the line. There was a click while she switched connections to talk to the caller. When she returned, she asked:

"Is there a Dallas Winston there to accept the charges?"

"No, he definitely ain't here," Tim said. He didn't like saying aloud that Dally was dead, and he didn't really feel up to cooperating with a collect caller.

"Will _you_ accept the charges?" The operator seemed to be begging.

"Who from?"

"I don't know, sir. He says he's at the Montgomery, Kansas County Jail."

"Alright." Tim liked hearing her call him 'sir' and acquiesced.

Another click, and then a man's voice: "Where's Merril?"

"Who's this?" Tim asked.

"Who's this?"

"I'm the guy who's gonna hang up and kill your one phone call if you don't own up, Montgomery County."

A pause. During which Tim's mind was consulting its internal map.

Montgomery County, Kansas. Which one was that? Right over the state line. That's where Independence and Coffeyville were located. Shit, the bootleggers were in jail.

"You one of the guys with the juice?" Tim asked to confirm his suspicions.

"Watch it, will you? They listen to these calls."

Tim grinned. He knew that. "That's why I referred to it as 'juice' and not 180-proof corn liquor, asshole. What do you want?"

The man on the other end of the line made a funny noise- like he was bubbling over. Maybe he had some kind of sinus thing. The guys who worked those stills sometimes had respitory things from breathing in fumes and smoke; this time of year, they were constantly moving back and forth between a hot fire and the cold outside air. Plus, they lived in squalor. Tim had heard that. He made it a rule to stay the hell away from them.

"Buck was sending some boys up," the man on the other end said. Tim didn't interject to say that Buck had only sent one boy. "If he ain't sent them yet, tell 'em to sit tight."

"What if he already sent them?"

"Tell 'em to turn around."

"What's going to be waiting for them…if they can't be reached?"

"Jack shit. The moon and the sky and the lone prairie."

"So, basically, what's always waiting up there?" Tim had to get that in.

"Plus about a dozen counties and a couple of feds."

Tim didn't have a smart-ass reply to that. He could give a damn about Buck and his moonshine, but he liked Duane Baird about as much as he liked anybody.

He looked at the clock. It was almost four. He had no idea when last light was, but he'd noticed the shadows growing long when the front door had blown open and shut again about 20 minutes before.

"What do you think, man?" Said the voice on the other end. "You think you can let Buck know to stop 'em?"

"Hell with Buck," Tim said. He hung up on the bootlegger. He looked around the bar, half-expecting that speaking Buck's name might have conjured him. It hadn't.

Tim picked up his jacket from the bar. He snuck around behind and snagged himself a bottle of Coke from the cooler. There was an apple in there too, and Tim took it since he couldn't fathom how Buck would ever be able to bite into an apple. He stuffed the apple into his jacket pocket and headed out the door and into the fading daylight.

Buck returned from his room upstairs five minutes later to find his bar empty except for a couple of guys playing cards in a corner.

"Where's Shepard?" He called over to them.

"He left. Took a call and high-tailed it out of here."

"He took a call on my phone? Was it for him or for me?" Buck hated it when Tim had his calls re-routed to the bar.

"I didn't take the call, man. Shepard did. Don't know who was calling."

Buck muttered _wise ass_ to the card players. He went to the door and poked his head out into the wind. Tim was already gone. He closed the door and tried his luck with the wise ass in the corner one more time.

"Did you hear anything he said?"

"Said something about Montgomery County, and he said to hell with you, man."

"Shit," Buck muttered. He didn't like Tim entangled in his business any more than was necessary. Of all of them, Tim was the one most likely to take things over. Buck had been pretty successful thus far at keeping Tim at bay by relegating him to delivery boy, a position which Tim almost always refused to take opting instead to do nothing.

"Do you think...?" Buck said to the cardplayers, and then stopped himself. It was a stupid question. He pondered his options: toss them out, close the bar, and go after Tim and Duane. Make a fishing call up to the Montgomery County jail. Do nothing and bet that Tim and Duane could take care of themselves, and- if they couldn't- at least Tim would be out of his hair for a while.

Buck went with option #3. Not that he was proud of it. He just didn't like Tim Shepard that much.


	5. Chapter 5

SE Hinton owns Buck's and The Outsiders. All hail the participants at the 731 Boards for the conversation that sparked Jason Cutler.

**Everything That Glitters**

Five-

Jason Cutler had, in effect, been marked twice: once on purpose and once by occupational hazard.

His trademark _/J _ was tattooed in pen ink between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Buck had watched him do it way back when. Watched him break open a gas station pen and then force the ink in to a cut he made with his knife over the course of several days. It had been snowing then, too, and they hadn't been doing much with the horses aside from tossing them hay over the fence. If the weather had been good enough for them to be roping, no doubt the placement of the tattoo would have caused it to get infected.

The other mark was a scar that ran down in the shape of a half moon- actually the shape of half a hoof- down from Jason's right eyebrow and across his cheek. The scar ran through his eyebrow and it hadn't grown back there. The hoof that had hit the side of Jason's face had also damaged the eye and left the iris a milky gray color. He claimed he could still see alright from it. The molars beneath his right cheek were missing, too, but Jason seldom smiled wide enough for anyone to see. Buck only knew because he'd seen Jason take the hit and had fished the teeth out of his roping partner's mouth so he wouldn't choke on them while he was unconscious.

The dames didn't dig Jason's scar the way they did Tim Shepard's, and that Buck just didn't understand. All Tim had done to earn his was to happen to be in the way of a bottle when some tweaker threw it. Jason's had come from a kick with the thrust-to-weight ratio of a rocket behind it and at the cost of a fair amount of Jason's frontal lobe functioning. Tim Shepard was just stupid all on his own.

Stupid wasn't the right word for, really. It was for Shepard, not for Jason. Spooky was more like it. His injury had rendered him a permanent poker face; his expressions no longer matched his emotions. He could be enraged or over the moon with joy and you couldn't tell by looking at him. Not at his face, anyway. Buck could tell by the man's body language. A fella had to watch Jason's hands- see if he was stretching his fingers, cracking his knuckles in preparation to make a fist.

Like Buck, Jason Cutler hated weather like this. Neither man was much of a drinker, in spite of Buck's running the bar. Neither man liked to be cooped up inside for too long. So it surprised Buck, and worried him a little, when Jason Cutler came through his door not fifteen minutes after Buck had given up on finding Tim.

"Shit," was the first thing Jason said, and the only thing he said for a minute or two while he stomped the snow off his boots, took off his hat, and settled at the bar. Buck set him up with a drink and did two or three things behind the bar while Jason drank it.

When he finally spoke again, it was to ask Buck, "Where's the schoolboys?"

He was referring to Tim and Dally. Jason kept forgetting that Dally was dead. He also kept forgetting that Duane Baird existed at all since Duane had been gone for so long. When Duane was around, Jason couldn't remember his name. He'd several times introduced himself and asked Duane if he roped. Duane, who knew better than to disrespect a man with a damaged temporal lobe, always just said no, he didn't.

"Tim's gone up to Independence," Buck told Cutler.

"Why the fuck for? It's slick as your sister's cunt out on 75." That was Jason being funny. He said shit like that to taunt Buck because he knew Buck would never do anything about it, and he seemed to remember that Buck didn't have a sister. "Ain't no liquor those Kansas assholes can turn out's worth that drive."

Buck didn't want to tell about it. Saying it out loud forced him to acknowledge how silly it had already become. Still, he wasn't going to take any guff over the quality of his liquor.

"Tim ain't going after the 'shine. Duane's going after it. Tim's going after Duane."

A moment of thoughtful silence. Jason, no doubt, trying to remember who the hell Duane was.

"Well," he said. Buck could hear the grin in his voice even if it didn't register on his face. "That's sure romantic and all, but it's still a helluva day for a grown man to go chasing another one seventy miles on the ice."

"Kansas boys are in jail, I take it," Buck said. "Tim took the call while I was out back. Decided to head on up by himself to save Duane."

"And who's brilliant plan was it to send this Duane guy?" Once again, he had no idea who Duane was.

"That would've been my brilliant idea. I made the offer, but it was still his choice."

"What's he walking in to up there?" Jason asked.

"Don't know. I didn't take the call, and Shepard wasn't in a sharing mood. He took off before I could ask him."

Another man, without Jason's medical history would've looked Buck in the eye just then and narrowed his own eyes. Jason kept looking past Buck at Miss February on the wall, but his voice was accusing when he said:

"What did you have to be out back for? Ain't no day for relaxing in the sunshine reading the paper. Lemme see your eyes."

Buck hated looking Jason in the eye. His different-colored irises creeped Buck the hell out, and the fact that he was being asked told him the jig was up. This conversation had just become unfriendly. Still, Buck gave in. Jason owned him, owned the horses he raced, owned half the bar too.

Buck leaned forward on the bar and widened his eyes. Jason blinked and then squinted. His one milky gray and one hazel eye met Buck's.

"Now let me see your arms," Jason said. He gestured to Buck's sleeves. "Roll 'em up."

"That ain't necessary," Buck said.

"I suppose not. I never told you, but I'd hoped you could have intuited to find another source for 'shine when those fellas got busted. Instead, you sent the schoolboy and…what's his name?"

"Duane."

"Duane. He's a goddamned veteran, ain't he?"

Buck nodded. How was it that Jason could remember _that_?

"Shit, sent a kid and a soldier off to their beheading. Did you want them out of your hair so's you could shoot up in peace or were you just not thinking?"

Buck shrugged. It wasn't a wise move to say that he just never liked Shepard much. He started to say it, and then shut his mouth.

"They get jailed, you're bailing them," Jason said. "We can't have them jailed up there and given the opportunity to talk. Your boy Shepard could take us to the cleaners."

"Shepard wouldn't talk," Buck said, although he really wasn't sure.

"Why'd Duane go to 'Nam?" Jason asked. He settled back down on his bar stool and took a drink. His tone had become conversational again, but Buck couldn't be sure.

"He was part of an armed robbery. Wasn't the shooter or the driver, so they offered him a deal. They sent him to 'Nam instead of MacLeod."

"Did he get a deal because he talked?" Now Jason was making his point.

Buck didn't have the answer. He didn't know. Duane and a couple of Shepard's other boys had held up a gas station between Tulsa and Tahlequah. Buck didn't know what happened to the other two, but Duane and Shepard still seemed tight.

"Don't know."

"Well, then, that's a helluva a risk to take sending him up there into the waiting arms of the authorities, ain't it? Was your little pick-me-up worth that? You got that kind of high quality shit that it's worth making that kind of error?"

At that moment, looking into Jason's blank eyes, Buck was sure he was going to die. Maybe not right then, but he felt sure that Jason was done with him. When Jason set his glass down on the bar and stood up, Buck flinched. It wasn't lost on Cutler.

"You cold, buddy? You shivering? It's goddamned warm in here compared to where you're going."

Buck was certain Jason was referring to the grave, but Jason surprised him. He nodded towards the door.

"Get your coat. Let's put this right," he said.

Buck might as well have refused. The outcome was going to be the same for him either way now. He was on borrowed time, but maybe it would be enough time for him to think of a way to surprise Jason Cutler- either to win back his approval or finish what two thousand g's to the side of the head couldn't.


	6. Chapter 6

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders. Yes, there is a Dalton Girls movie. The whole Dalton Gang genre has some of the best and earliest examples of people taking the hint of a possible Dalton Girl and riding that Mary Sue train into the sunset.

**Everything That Glitters**

Six-

The wind kicked up. The drifts of snow began to claw their way out on to the blacktop. The car jolted each time it hit one, but Duane didn't slow down. He wasn't driving fast, but Darry could see patches of ice underneath the snow on the road and it made him fidgety. He glanced at the _Hold Fast_ inked out on Duane's knuckles, and hoped that he would.

"You ever read about the Dalton gang?" Darry asked. It was the only thing he knew about Independence and Coffeyville. "They make you read about them in school?"

Duane shook his head and then cracked his neck. He was trying to get the ringing in his ears to stop. Sometimes cracking his neck or his jaw did the trick. Darry waited.

Duane said, "Yeah, they were lawmen first- feds."

"All the law was feds back then because this was all Indian Territory."

Duane shrugged. They'd all been made to study Oklahoma history as kids, but he hadn't absorbed all the particulars.

Darry added, "Yeah, they were all law and then they turned."

"What of it?"

"I just makes me wonder- were they always going to be bad guys, but they just happened to be lawmen for a while first? Or were they good lawmen and then something happened to make them go wrong?"

Duane thought about it. He wondered if that meant there was just as much potential in someone on a criminal path to do good.

"I read that they sat in that train station in Adair with their guns on their laps and waited for the train. No one tried to intervene," said Darry. "Same in Coffeyville- people knew it was them come to town, but they robbed two banks and no one made a move on them."

Duane raised an eyebrow at that. His repertoire of Dalton Gang trivia came mostly from reading Wild West comics as a kid.

"'Cept the people who shot Emmett Dalton twenty odd times," he told Darry. "They let 'em go in to the banks, man, but they were waiting when they came back out."

_So he can read_, thought Darry. He prodded at Duane: "My old man had a couple of those old Wild West novels you could buy for a nickel. You read them too?"

"Comics, and I seen them in those cowboy movies. You ever see the one about the girls?"

"Is it a skin flick?"

Duane shook his head, grinning. "Serious film. Well, not high art, but it's about the sisters. I suspect they was fictional sisters. They all have funny names- flower names. Hold up stagecoaches."

"More ladylike than robbing trains, I guess."

"They don't take any shit. They go on the lam after one of them kills a guy, and then…I don't know. Can I say it's a little disturbing? Not used to seeing a woman take on a role like that. They're kind of mean."

"So's my little sister. Maybe I'm more accustomed to it." Darry grinned. "So who fought Huckleberry Hound- the brothers or the sisters?"

"The brothers, I reckon," Duane said.

They crossed over into Kansas in silence. They hit a larger drift and Duane had to grip the wheel with both hands to keep the car from spinning out.

Darry twisted around in his seat and looked at the cloud of snow swirling behind them. The light was beginning to fade now, and the snow spiraled around into a tunnel on the highway. Oklahoma seemed to disappear into it like a black hole. It dawned on him that he could still see the curling tunnel of snow because it was backlit. A pair of headlights was coming up fast behind them.

Darry felt his stomach tighten. He had never been arrested, but he had an innate fear of cops. Logic took over though as he stared at the headlights: they'd crossed the state line. Oklahoma highway patrol wouldn't still being following them. He hadn't seen any Kansas HPs when they crossed over. No cherries were flashing. Whoever was behind them, they weren't the law and they were driving unnecessarily fast. His stomach released, but just a little bit.

"Take a look at this," he said to Duane.

Duane looked in the rearview mirror. He could see the headlights but not the make of the car. He went through much the same mental checklist as Darry, and also determined that the other driver was not the law. Duane had been in jail, although not since returning from the Navy. He slowed down some and hoped the other driver would pass him. He turned his attention back to the road ahead.

Darry stayed turned in his seat, looking back.

"Christ," he said suddenly, and Duane tapped the brakes in spite of himself. The car skidded, and he steered into it. The Belair swung around, but decelerated. They stopped, nice and easy, in the southbound lane looking back towards Oklahoma.

"What happened to him?" Duane asked. The other car was no longer following.

"He skidded and went off. He's in the ditch on this side. You see his lights?"

Duane peered ahead. He nodded. He could see the lights from the other car stretched out across the empty field.

"Shit," Darry mumbled. "When do you have to meet those guys in Independence?"

Duane didn't answer. There was no need to discuss it, and he hadn't heard half of Darry's question anyway. He bore down slowly on the gas, and eased his car back towards the other at a crawl.

"Well, what the fuck?" He said when they got close enough to see the make of the other car in the ditch. "Is that Shepard?"

Darry snorted. Whether he was amused or irritated, Duane couldn't be sure. He pulled the car over on to the shoulder and put it in park. Tim was just emerging from the passenger side of his Ford. He was in too deep on the driver's side to get that door open. He didn't seem to notice Duane and Darry waiting there for him to reach the shoulder. He was too caught up in his own cursing.

"Son of bitch," he shouted at the prairie. "Don't these people plow out their fucking roads? Christ, it ain't that far from civilization."

"You're alright, I take it," Darry said.

Tim ignored him. He asked Duane, "How do you drive on this shit, man? I hit that drift and it spun me like a top. Goddamnit…"

"What are you even doing up here?" Duane asked. "I told Buck I'd go."

"Son of a bitch Buck," He was close enough to them now, that they could see Tim rolling his eyes. "Sent us all up here to our deaths. Kansas boys are in the pokey. One of them called collect and said the feds are waiting up there."

Duane shrugged. "Well, there's no way Buck could've known…"

"Yeah, but you don't see him hauling his dumb ass up here to stop y'all, do you? Christ Jesus, what am I supposed to do now?"

Darry looked down at his shoes and tried not to grin openly. "We dig you out. You got a chain or a rope or something?"

Tim looked at Darry like he had snakes coming out of his ears. Tim had only ever been out of Tulsa once when he'd been sent to a Bible-beater reform school in the seventh grade. He'd ridden a bus and the weather had been warm. He had no sense when it came to winter driving.

"I got a rope," Duane said. "But it might be rotten. I ain't used it since…before I got sent…We could use another shovel, too. How far back's that last town?"

Darry squinted into the darkness. "Couple of miles. What's to the north? I can see a light."

"Havana, I think. Ain't nothing more there than a bar and post office."

"Bar's good," Tim said. He stomped the snow off of his boots and pushed between them to get to Duane's car.


	7. Chapter 7

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders. This possibly unwelcome addition to their family is all mine. The imagery of Tulsa burning on the desert floor like a signal fire belongs to the Cowboy Junkies.

**Everything That Glitters**

Seven-

She had been known to be delusional, to have the occasional "psychotic episode" is what they called them- but even Kelli Jo Curtis couldn't close her eyes and fool her mind into believing that she was in the Havana on the island with the salsa music and the warm water beating against the shore walls. She was in Havana, Kansas and she knew it.

At least she was in a bar. It was close enough to the railroad line to rattle when the train went by, but at least the train didn't stop. There was no one in the bar but Kelli and the bartender, and no sign of anyone else coming.

She was tired of other people. They drained her. Their smallest expectations were the worst: smile, be polite, be agreeable. The last one was the tough one, and the doctor who came to the Girls Industrial School in Beloit had explained why:

"People like you," he'd said. "People who have what you have, they tend to be smart. Very smart. Very creative people. I understand that it must be difficult to be agreeable when you're quick and think you can see the holes in everyone's plans."

And then he filled her full of holes. Maybe he thought she'd be more agreeable if she was full of holes and some of the smart ran out of her.

It was a new treatment, experimental. Only rich people could afford to have it done in a hospital. The State of Kansas was allowing it to be used on its wards on a trial basis. She was one of the lucky ones.

"Did my parents say it was okay?" She asked the doctor.

"Your parents no longer have a say in it," he told her. "We told them it was best if they terminated their rights. You're going to be expensive, Miss Curtis. Your kind of disorder…it's chronic. It doesn't go away. Your parents would never be able to afford the kind of care you will most likely require for the rest of your life. They can still come see you. Just because they've terminated your rights, doesn't mean they can't come see you."

"But they don't," she said. She couldn't remember what his answer to that was. They must have still been alive at that point, since the doctor brought them up. Their death and the insulin treatments coincided, and she had trouble remembering that she'd been told.

The holes in her arms became holes in her memory. If that was the intention of the treatment- to even the playing field- it worked. There was plenty she didn't remember. She didn't get any less smart, though, and people still drained her.

And Tulsa- her hometown- was a big city with a lot of people.

In particular, there were a lot of people who knew her that she might not- thanks to the treatments- know anymore. She'd thought about going home. She'd as much as promised her little brother that she was coming, but when she saw it there glittering in the dawn like a signal fire the force of all the questions she was going to have to answer pushed her on past. She ended up back across the line in Kansas, a place where she had hoped to never be again.

"Can I get you a drink, girl?" The bartender asked.

She told him she didn't drink, and then felt foolish. She was, after all, in his bar. She asked if he had any coffee. He told her he had Cokes on ice.

"That'll do," she said, and smiled. It made her tired.

* * *

Buck's streak of luck lasted as far as the ditch two miles south of Havana that held Tim Shepard's car. He considered himself lucky to have stayed alive that long- given that Jason hadn't said a word since they left Tulsa.

"Where is he?" Buck asked, looking at Tim's car.

Jason pulled the truck over on to the shoulder next to the spot when Tim's car's tires had begun their trail into the snow.

"Why don't you get out and take a look?" Jason asked, and Buck knew his time was up.

He got out of the truck and stepped into the snow. Out of instinct, he moved to the right about a foot so that he could walk in the groove made by the car's tire.

It was more convenient for Jason that way. He didn't have to step out and away from the truck. He set just one foot on the ground and stretched his arm around the back of the cab and shot Buck from across the pick-up bed.

He got back in the truck and pulled his and then the passenger doors closed. He squinted into the waning light, blurred by snow, to be sure that no one had stirred from within Shepard's car. Satisfied that the car was empty, he pulled back on to the road and began driving towards the next town, eyes peeled for Duane's Chevy.

* * *

Duane was happy when Darry started doing the talking.

Tim didn't argue with Darry. Duane didn't typically argue with Tim, and he wasn't about to start now, however he wasn't in the mood for having a drink or two and then going back out into the snow and wind to pull Tim's car out of the ditch. He wanted to have that behind him, and then maybe a drink. His stomach still didn't feel right. He could've forgone a drink altogether.

"Let's get your car out first," Darry said as they pulled within sight of the Havana Off-Sale. "Then come back up here and figure out what we're supposed to do about this Independence thing."

Tim didn't argue. He made a noise, but no intelligible words came out.

Duane pulled up in front of the liquor store- the only building in town, it seemed, with a light on- and put the car in park. He mumbled that he'd be right back and left Tim and Darry to disagree with one another in silence.

The bar was dimly lit and barely heated. The walls were plastered with dollar bills with patron's names written on them. Duane didn't understand why; it seemed like an awful waste of money. He wondered how much of a loss it would be if the place caught fire. He wondered if it was an unlawful use of currency and therefore a federal crime. He was smiling to himself when he stepped up to the bar next to its only patron.

The girl at the bar had a weary look in her gray eyes. She looked him up and down, opened and shut her pretty mouth. She wanted to ask him something, but she would have preferred a few minutes to observe him first.

Duane didn't have a few minutes.

"Your brother's out in the car," he said.

"Are you going to Tulsa…wait, what?"

He grinned. He maybe shouldn't have been teasing her given all the stuff Darry had told him. Still, Darry had been specific that she wasn't going to ax murder anyone.

"I recognize you. We met a long time ago- partyin' or something. I know your brother."

"And he's outside in your car?"

Duane nodded.

"Wow," she said. "I wasn't quite ready for that."

"I think the feeling's mutual. He won't be expecting you either."

The girl thought on this. "Maybe I'll wait for the next ride."

"Hang out here much? I couldn't venture a guess on when the next ride'll be. Hell, the next opportunity will probably be us again when we circle back."

"Who _are_ you?"

"Duane Baird. I guess you don't remember me."

That struck a nerve with her. She ducked her eyes and shrugged.

"There's a lot I don't remember," she said. "Ain't no fault of yours. It's Darry you got out in the car? Shit, I'd have preferred to tangle with Sodapop. Sort of a warm-up. Where are you guys going, anyway?"

Duane wasn't sure he should tell her.

"Just up to Independence and back."

She nodded as though she knew what he was referring to.

He added, "We got a car to pull out of the ditch first. Is there anybody working here? We need a chain, or a better rope."

"There's a bartender in back. Whose car's in the ditch?"

"You know Tim Shepard?"

Of course she did. Everyone knew Tim Shepard and the way the girl rolled her eyes told Duane that she knew him well enough.

"And you didn't just leave him out there to freeze?" She asked. "You must be some bleeding heart."

"Hypocritical oath, I guess you could say."

The girl looked incredulous. "You're a doctor?"

"No. I got some medical…no, I'd just like to be out of the business of harming people, that's all."

"Well, then it's Shepard's lucky day, ain't it?"

The bartender appeared then and asked Duane if he could get him anything. Duane told him what he was after, and the bartender said he had another rope in his truck parked next to the bar. Duane was welcome to use it. He didn't seem disappointed to see that Duane was taking the girl with him. He didn't seem surprised that she would leave with a guy who- for all the bartender knew- was a stranger to her either.

Duane thanked the bartender and gestured for Kelli Jo Curtis to go ahead of him.

He let her go ahead out of politeness and so he could watch her walk. She looked like a hundred other girls from Tulsa, and he figured he could about trace her line back across Arkansas and the Appalachians to the boatload of indentured servants that brought her people from the shores of Scotland or Ireland, dirty and starving.

She was probably five foot three; the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She'd have to stand on her toes if they were ever to dance, Duane thought to himself, and then shook his head at himself for thinking about it.


	8. Chapter 8

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

**Everything That Glitters**

Eight-

It didn't make a difference to Jason Cutler one way or another whether he plugged one guy and called it a day or had a full-blown killing spree yet ahead of him. He was still undecided about what to do with the soldier boy when he found him. He wanted to hear the story for himself: did the soldier or did he not reduce his sentence by selling out Tim Shepard?

It didn't surprise Cutler- or didn't register with him as surprise- to find them at the bar. It was, after all, the only place open on such a shitty day. What surprised him- and forced him to consider his options- was that Duane now had more company than just Tim. It convoluted his plans even more so that they were all standing outside Duane's car and apparently arguing as he approached.

Duane and Tim didn't seem too caught up the argument. Tim was smoking, sitting on the hood of Duane's car and looking amused. Duane was looking at the sky as though amazed by the endlessness of it and cracking his jaw.

Jason remembered Buck or Tim saying that Duane had grown up outside of Tulsa, in Tahlequah. There were trees and hills in Tahlequah, not wide open country like this. Maybe all that sky really was a marvel to Duane.

They all looked up when they saw Jason's truck. Tim hoped down off the hood and slid his hand into his back pocket out of habit. Most likely, Jason figured, Tim had a switchblade. He hardly cared; Jason had a gun.

He recognized the giant who was arguing with the girl, but not the girl herself. On a typical day, he would have turned his attention to the girl, evaluated her form, made a decision to pursue or not to pursue. Today, however, he kept his eye on the muscle-bound motherfucker she was lipping off at. He couldn't remember the guy's name. It didn't matter, though. He was too big to tangle with, and Jason didn't have enough shots left to pop all of them and possibly a bartender too.

He intended to appeal to Shepard's intelligence when he got close enough to speak. Tim was a survivor because he knew when the time was to fight and when it was time to cut ties. Jason was willing to bet that the prospect of getting shot would convince Tim that Duane wasn't worth a fight. Before he could speak, though, Tim tossed his cigarette aside and asked:

"Where's Buck?"

"Back yonder on the road, keeping an eye on your car."

Tim didn't believe that for an instant. He cocked his head at Jason.

"What the hell for? Not like it's going to get up and run."

Jason gestured around them. "Never can tell. Someone might come along and try to strip it."

"This ain't Tulsa," Tim said.

"I need to speak with this one-" and he nodded at Duane. "Do y'all mind if he and I step inside for a minute?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Tim said.

Cutler raised his eyebrows at Duane, who shrugged.

"Let's you and me go have a drink," Jason told him. "The rest of you, go on ahead and fish Shepard's car out. He and I'll be along."

He nodded towards the south. None of the other three moved. He looked at Duane.

Duane told them, "Just like he says- we'll be along in a minute."

And then he went back into the bar, followed by Jason Cutler.

* * *

"Been a while, ain't it, pretty girl?" Tim said to Kelli Jo.

If Darry hadn't been standing there, he might have hugged her quick. She probably would have shoved him off and called him a couple of things, which he would have enjoyed tremendously.

Back in high school, she'd made a habit of drinking hard with people she didn't know. Tim had picked her up- quite literally- a time or two and delivered her back to her big brother. He'd throw her over his shoulder and tell her, "say goodnight, Gracie" and haul her out to his car. Dump her off with Darry without passing a word between them.

He'd had every chance to take advantage of the situation, too. Loaded and amped up like she was, she'd have gone for it. Tim put that idea to rest one night when she curled up against his passenger door and started bawling her eyes out.

He hated that phase of drunk, when the girls started to cry. There was nothing to be done with them then. They wanted to cry on you, and then they wanted to slap you for it. He was about to ask her if she didn't think maybe she'd be better off with some fresh air- implying that she could walk herself home- when it dawned on him that he couldn't smell it on her.

She wasn't even drunk. She was just out of her mind.

"He going to knock you around?" Tim asked her, meaning Darry. He couldn't see Darry doing it, but stranger things happened.

She shook her head, babbling, "I don't want to go back…I don't want to…they hate me, all of them…I ain't like them. They don't understand."

"Your daddy going to hit you?" Tim asked, because that's what would've happened at his house.

"No," she shook her head again, and simmered down a notch. She seemed to get that Tim wasn't getting her either. "No, it ain't like that. They just act like I don't belong…"

Tim had nodded like he understood, and he figured he did. Girls all liked to think that nobody understood them. It was a fixation with girls. This one was no different, he figured- same teenaged girl beefs. This would've been his queue, with any other girl, to jump in with the _that_ _ain't true, I understand you, baby_ bullshit. He could've had her on her back in the backseat in five minutes tops, but he liked Darry Curtis enough to let this one be.

Darry raised an eyebrow when Tim called Kelli Jo "pretty girl". He knew damned well that Tim called everything walking and female that. He wasn't sure if that made it better or worse to hear it thrown in his sister's direction.

"Get in the car," Darry said. He meant Kelli Jo, but it was Tim who moved to follow the directive.

"We can't leave him," Kelli protested, pointing at the direction of the bar.

"Duane said to meet him back at Tim's car. Duane can handle himself."

Kelli shook her head and appealed to Tim: "He's going to kill him, isn't he, Shepard? We can't leave him here."

"What do you suggest we do then, MacArthur? Storm the joint?" Tim began tapping down a fresh cigarette on the hood of Duane's car, feigning disinterest.

In truth, he was very interested- first, because he had absolutely no idea what they _should_ do, and second, because it fascinated him how girls always assumed a rescue mission was in order in a situation like this.

Yes, Tim knew the likelihood was good that Jason intended to kill Duane. He also knew Duane wouldn't have told them to go back and wait at the car if he hadn't meant it. Tim lit his cigarette and raised his eyes to look over the roof of the car at Kelli Jo. He'd bet all the tea in his little brother's sock draw that the girl's next move would be to go stomping in there herself if Tim and her brother didn't show an inclination to go first.

"Fine, fuck you guys," Kelli Jo said, looking back and forth between Tim and Darry. She walked past Darry, dodging his hand when he reached out to grab her arm. Tim smirked to himself, wishing he'd laid money on that move.

He called after Kelli Jo: "One thing's for sure, girl- he's going to start shooting if you go charging in there. Duane's packing, too. He took Buck's piece before he left. If it ain't in the car, then he's got it. You walk in there, Cutler'll use the distraction to pull, and if Cutler pulls then Duane'll draw to protect you and himself. Don't think nothing of that- it's just instinct for him."

Kelli Jo stopped and frowned at Tim. She exhaled hard and looked back at Darry.

"Is the gun in the car?" She asked.

Darry opened the door of the car and slid in behind the wheel. He felt beneath the seat and checked the glove box. He got out again and raised his empty hands at his sister.

"He's got it."

"Shit," Kelli Jo said. She looked again at Tim, "Who _is_ this guy?"

Tim looked confused. "What do you mean 'who is he'? You drank him under the table once at Renny 's. I lost five bucks on that. I was foolish enough to put my money on size over will. I think I saw you slap him once at the drive-in. Are we that fleeting to you?"

Kelli Jo set her jaw hard. Darry knew that look. It meant she was fighting with every fiber of herself to keep from crying. All Tim saw was an angry girl- one of his favorite incarnations- and he was prepared to keep taunting her until Darry spoke up.

"He ain't going to kill him, Kelli Jo. It wouldn't make sense. There's no logic in it."

"Hell with logic. I've seen the inside of a mental institution, Darry. I've seen girls with scars like that. I promise you, a guy like him's going to have no problem parting ways with logic."

Darry shook his head and asked Tim, "What's he carry- Cutler? What kind of gun's he got? Got a barrel or a clip?"

"Barrel. Six shots, if."

"There's four of us, five if he's taken the bartender into account. If he's smart enough to accommodate for error, then he's not going to risk shooting Duane here if he thinks we're all still waiting outside. He'd have to kill all of us, and I'm willing to bet he won't take that chance. What do you say, Shepard?"

Tim nodded. "Six one way- half dozen the other on him killing everyone, but he probably popped Buck on the way up here. Unless he stopped to reload, he's down to five shots. He'd have to be a hundred percent sure there's only one other guy in the bar, and he'd have to be solid in his aim. I don't think his eye sight is that hot."

Kelli's shoulders sank down, but she walked back towards Darry. Tim looked at them standing side-by-side and frowned. She had to be half Darry's size. She bore more of a resemblance to the youngest brother, and looked nothing like the middle one. She seemed more muted- somehow- than the other three. He remembered their mother: it was like the woman had an aura around her- a glowing, golden light. Kelli Jo's hair was mousey and her eyes were gray like water and the Kansas sky. Her beauty lay in the way she moved. You had to sit back and watch her to see it.

"What do we do then- wait?" She asked Darry.

"Your favorite thing, I know," he said.

Tim stuffed his hands in his pockets. He wanted in the worst way to ask Kelli to fill the time by telling them about the mental institution she had mentioned, but he didn't figure Darry would have it.

He took his hands out of his pockets again, cracked his knuckles, and asked, "You want a smoke, little girl?"

She nodded and leaned across the hood of the car. Tim put two cigarettes between his lips and lit them. He inhaled and then leaned across the hood from his side and winked at her. She smiled back and took the cigarette from him. Just for a moment, before her eyes drifted back towards the door of the bar, she seemed to be remembering something about him, and he got the feeling it made her happy to think about it.


	9. Chapter 9

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

**Everything That Glitters**

Nine-

Jason Cutler rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

"I got a bitch of a headache," he said to Duane.

Duane wasn't sure what kind of reply was in order. He had turned to face Cutler once they were both inside the bar and had backed a good distance away from him so that he could see whenever Cutler decided to make a move.

Duane shrugged. "You hung over? Hair of the dog is what they say…"

"No, I ain't hung over. It's this…" Jason tapped the scar where it ran through his eyebrow. "My head hurts all the goddamned time. Like your ears, I guess."

"My ears don't hurt," Duane said. "Just ring."

Jason tapped on the bar with his fingers, but the bartender was once again lost in the bowels of his back room. He motioned for Duane to sit down.

"So, what were you- a marine?"

"Navy."

"Navy? What the hell made you settle on that? Can't see myself taking to open water."

"Wasn't given a choice. I was told I was enlisting in the Navy. Guy that got sentenced before me got the Marines. I suppose the intent was to split us up."

Duane's gaze drifted. He was thinking about something else and he wasn't going to let Jason in on it. Cutler cleared his throat and asked:

"What about the third guy? I heard there was three of you in that robbery."

Duane nodded. "He got sent down. He fired shots, and got attempted murder for it. The other guy- the one who they suggested join the Marines- he was the driver, waiting outside the whole time. I was just standing around looking dumb."

"You were the muscle. Or were you the bag man?"

Duane shrugged. "In the end, I wasn't anything. Didn't even have a hand in the planning of it. That was Shepard, but we didn't give him up. When it all shook down, I ended up an E-2."

"What's that?"

"My pay grade, the one I came out of the service with. They were trying to make a Corpsman out of me, but I decided I'd had enough. Seen enough. I fulfilled my obligation as far as the court was concerned, so I came home."

"Not a soldier were you?"

"A sailor. No, I wasn't. Definitely not a Corpsman."

Jason didn't know what Duane meant by Corpsman.

"See, you're an Oklahoma boy. We ain't made for open water."

"Wasn't on the open water most of the time. Just when we crossed the ocean. Most of the time, we were docked somewhere. Then it wasn't so bad. Got shore leave from time to time. Walked around, looked at girls."

"And all you did was look?" Jason said.

"A gentleman don't tell's what my grandpa would say."

"That what you are- a gentleman? You think of yourself that way?"

"More so than I am some other things. I know I ain't a Corpsman, and I got no record, so I ain't a criminal." Duane didn't look directly at Jason, but there was accusation in his tone.

"I thought you and Shepard was due in court today. Buck said something about that. What were you going to court for?"

"Speeding ticket. Reckless driving. Acting like a child, basically. If that's what they charge me with, I deserve it, but it ain't no felony."

"What was Shepard in court for?"

"Same shit."

"And then what?"

"What do you mean? What was I going to do after court today? I was going to pay my fine and go home. Drink a beer and work on my kitchen. I'm getting a new stove. Going to need a propane line run in for that."

Cutler smirked at that and said, "But you didn't have court, so instead you're out here in the sticks making a run for Buck. How the hell did that happen?"

"Sounds like it ain't happening anymore. I don't know why I said I'd do it. Just wanted some peace and quiet. Liked the idea of going for a drive. I don't like that bar of yours, Cutler. Makes my ears ring."

"That ain't my fault."

"Yeah, blame the Navy for that, but the ringin' ain't as bad when I'm outside. Just sounds like the wind blowing. In a room full of people, it can about make me ill sometimes."

"Well, I'm sure sorry for that, Baird. I really am. This country ain't treating its servicemen right."

"Most people don't understand what's really going on over there. They ain't seen what I seen. If they never have to, then I guess I done my service."

"Hmmm," Jason said, and he thought on that for a minute. Duane was complicated. Jason was used to dealing with guys like Buck and Shepard- both wastes of space and oxygen in his reckoning. Duane, on the other hand, was the gentleman his grandfather expected of him. He may not have been when he went into the Navy, but he was by the time he came back. And he'd brought Darry Curtis- whose reputation as a martyr far preceded him- along on this little venture.

Then there was the girl. Where did they even find her?

Jason said to Duane. "What do you think of that girl?"

"She seems nice enough," Duane said, evading the question.

"She's a pretty little thing. I like the real blondes."

Duane shrugged.

Jason continued, "I think she likes you. Come on, man, tell me you wouldn't take her 'round back and bang her like a screen door if she gave you the green light."

Duane shrugged again. The thought had crossed his mind, truth be told. Not to take her into this particular back room, but maybe to take her out sometime. Go to dinner and a movie, maybe take a drive- if she was agreeable to it- and see how things progressed from there. She seemed like a tuff girl. Her brother said some heavy things about her, but Duane knew there was always more to people like Kelli- and people like Jason Cutler- than first appeared. Growing up with Chris had taught him that. Duane figured he could make it work with a girl like Kelli.

He wondered again what he was going to have to do to wiggle them all out from under Jason.

Duane stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jason asked him. His tone of voice wasn't any different than when he asked Duane if he'd like to have a go with Kelli.

"Back to Oklahoma," Duane said. He pulled the pistol of the back of his jeans that had been there all along. He had the hammer pulled back with his thumb before his arm was fully extended and pointing the barrel at Jason.

"You going to shoot me, Boat Boy?" Jason asked. "That don't seem very gentlemanly."

"No less gentlemanly than the way you talk about Darry's sister."

"I'm not the one claiming to be a gentleman."

"That's not what I said," Duane corrected him. "Just said I lay somewhere between a felon and a Corpsman."

Jason rolled his eyes. He couldn't stand not knowing any longer: "What the hell's Corpsman anyway? You talk like it's something special."

"Corpsman's the medics assigned to the Marine units. They're Navy, but they go in with the Marines- and they go in first of any of 'em- so the Corpsman see all the shit."

Jason smirked. "But you wasn't cut out for that, you said. How come?"

"Because I saw enough just being on the boat. Decided I had no business going in-country."

"So you peached out."

"I came home. My buddy- the one the court put in the Marine Corps- I saw him one more time when they brought him on board my ship. Caught a look at him before they zipped him up in bag. That's how he came home. I made up my mind I wasn't coming back that way. I had other things to do."

"Like what?"

Duane shrugged at that. Then he winked at Cutler and said, "Work on my kitchen. Maybe bang Curtis' sister like a screen door. I don't know. I know I didn't come all the way back from goddamned South Vietnam to get laid out by the likes of you."

But his next move confused Jason. Duane took a step back and raised both his hands. He let the gun fall loose in his right, dangling on his index finger. Duane's eyes flickered to the left. Cutler smiled, thought about pulling, and then thought better of it.

"About goddamned time," he said. "Bartender, I'll have a bottle of Grain Belt, if you please."

"The hell you will," the bartender said. He was a small man and the sawed-off .410 he was holding looked cartoonish in his hands- like Elmer Fudd heading out on a hunting mission. Still, he was in position with the bar between him and Duane and Jason for protection. He had a shot for each of them in the chamber. He looked ready- Duane figured the old man could put him down and then lock in the second load before Cutler could draw and get turned around.

"My ride's outside," Duane said. He didn't really know that for sure, but it was true in a general sense: His car was outside, somewhere.

"You just lay it on the floor then, son, and be on your way."

Duane shook his head. "No, sir. He's holding too. I put it down and he'll shoot me."

"No, he won't," the bartender said. He raised the barrel of the shotgun to Jason's head. Cutler rolled his eyes.

"At the door?" Duane asked. "I'll back out and lay it down at the door."

"I'll cover you."

Duane nodded at the bartender and then began to back towards the door. He kept his eyes on Jason Cutler, who looked neither frightened nor annoyed. He stared straight back at Duane with a cold and empty look in his duel-colored eyes. It made Duane fear for the bartender.

He reached the door and pushed it open with the back of his foot. He stooped to leave the gun as promised. The bartender was coming around to put himself between Duane and Jason.

"Now yours," he said to Cutler. "And you'll be going out the back."

Duane left the gun and pushed through the door. Darry, Tim, and Kelli Jo's heads all popped up when they saw him. He tossed the keys at Darry.

"You drive, man. I'm about fried. Shepard, you got your blade?"

"Way ahead you, man," Tim said.

He nodded towards Cutler's truck and then smirked back at Duane. All four truck tires were flat.


	10. Chapter 10

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

**Everything that Glitters**

_…ordinary people, even without a leader or a plan, can act together to protect what's good, if they're tough enough and brave enough. –Robert Barr Smith, Daltons! The Raid on Coffeyville, Kansas_

Ten-

"Waiting outside for me, just like the Dalton gang," Duane said to Darry as they pulled away from the bar. He poked in the cigarette lighter. Duane rarely smoked anymore, but he found himself fluttering his fingers at Tim in the backseat to hand one up.

"Except we weren't waiting to fill you full of holes," Darry said.

Duane grinned, eyes on the lighter.

"What the hell happened?" Tim asked. "Cutler sure put the fear of God into you."

Duane frowned and shook his head. He didn't know how to explain it so he just said, "No, wasn't him. Just made me think about something I hadn't thought about in a while."

* * *

It was dark when they reached Tim's car. Darry brought them to a jerky stop on the shoulder next to the blood trail. The wells dug out by the tires were drifting in. Duane and Darry both barreled into the deep snow, not even attempting to follow the tire tracks or the trail of blood.

Kelli and Tim stumbled through behind them. Both being shorter than Darry and Duane, they had a more difficult time navigating the drifts.

Darry yanked open the rear passenger door. Then he stood aside for Duane. Duane cursed and leaned in over Buck's body.

Tim stood on his toes to see.

"Is he dead?" He asked Duane.

"Not quite."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," Tim mumbled.

Darry frowned and shook his head at Tim.

Kelli asked Duane, "Where's he been shot at?"

He didn't answer her for a moment. She asked him again.

This time he answered her: "Right above the heart. It passed through. Didn't hit anything of consequence, but he's lost a lot of blood."

"In my car," Tim said. "Is there a bullet stuck in my front seat too?"

"I doubt it. He was shot outside and crawled here," Duane said. "Darry, can you help me get him out of here?"

They hauled Buck out of Tim's car and Darry slung him- with ease- over his shoulder and walked him out to Duane's. Tim and Kelli Jo followed them and then hovered outside the car. Duane looked at both of them, and deemed Tim worthless.

"We're going to lay his head in your lap, alright, girl?" He said to Kelli Jo. "You know how to find a pulse?"

She put her fingers up to her neck.

Duane grinned. "You reckon you can find his, then?"

She nodded and he motioned for her to get into the car.

"You get his feet," Duane said to Tim as he passed by to open the passenger door for Darry.

"I'm going to hold my lighter up to his toes," Tim grumbled.

Duane told him, "Throw a blanket over that blood on the seat. We'll have to come back for your car."

Darry heaved Buck into the backseat so that his head lay in Kelli Jo's lap. Right away, she felt for his pulse and then nodded to Duane. He nodded back and got in on the passenger side. Tim and Darry got in, too, and they started off, heading south.

"You're going to have to come back for Shepard's car," Duane said to Darry after a silence that lasted to the Oklahoma State line.

Darry nodded.

"We can do that- me and Soda, after first light." He reached a hand back and said, "Shepard, let's see your keys."

Tim handed up his keys, nodding and grumbling.

Kelli Jo looked back and forth between them. She seemed to suspect what had transpired, but wanted confirmation from Tim anyway.

"You're going to jail- you and him- if you take Buck to the hospital."

"Most likely," said Tim. "They'll want to question us about the gunshot. Cops know we all know each other. They ain't going to believe we just happened upon him by coincidence. We'll just play dumb until Buck wakes up and gives 'em a good story. No sweat."

"There's no way around going to hospital," Duane said. He hadn't heard most of what Tim had said. He just carried on with his own explanation. "He's lost too much blood. If we'd got to him right away, I'd have been able to do something, but he might need to be given blood by now. Y'all leave us at the ER and take my car back to my place. My place, Curtis. Don't park it outside your house. When they grill me and Shepard, we ain't even going to mention the two of you."

Darry nodded. Kelli Jo said nothing. Tim raised an eyebrow at her- expecting her to speak- but she was frowning at the back of Duane's head. She was thinking of something else.

"Welcome home, pretty girl," Tim said, trying to distract her.

She gave him a curious look. He was being strangely passive in all this, and it distressed her. She knew better than to believe that Tim Shepard was just along for the ride.

* * *

The city lights glittered ahead of them. They passed the stockyards and Buck's roadhouse on the edge of town. The Miller sign glinted in the one window, but the door was shut and the parking lot was empty except for a couple of cars that hadn't been dug out from the night before.

Kelli Jo laid her head against the window and listened to Duane, Darry, and Tim getting their story straight. The final edit included nothing about her and Darry or about Jason Cutler. When Darry pulled the car up in front of the St. John's emergency room door, Tim got out first. Duane opened Kelli's door and leaned in to pull Buck across her lap. She stopped him with her hand on his wrist.

"I ain't been gone _that_ long," she said. "I know he don't disappear just because you wished him out of the official story."

"Who's that?" Duane asked. He winked at her.

"He's going to come after you."

Duane shrugged. He wasn't comfortable with his answer, but he tried to play it off like it was the way of the Universe: "I suspect Shepard and Buck'll take care of that. Shepard'd be in prison now if it wasn't for me, and he knows it. If it wasn't for Cutler, Buck'd be out roping the next sunny day. They have the motivation."

"And you don't?"

"No. Only motivation I had was to get out of that bar. Being successful at that, I don't really give a shit about the rest."

That was a bold-faced lie, and he blushed a little telling it. The truth was that it was already weighing on him: he had protected Tim in court and gotten sent to Vietnam for it. Now Tim was going to clear that debt by taking care of Jason Cutler. Trouble was Duane knew that a debt with someone like Tim was never really clear. It might have made them even, but it still left them enmeshed. Duane would still know who made Cutler disappear and why. It should have imbued him with a certain power over Tim. In Tim's mind, though, it made Duane an accomplice. He'd throw it all back on Duane if he had to.

Tim had Duane back on the line. Duane felt his dreams of spending his spring with his kitchen slipping away.

"I'll see you around, girl," he said to Kelli Jo. She withdrew her hand and Duane pulled Buck out of the car. He didn't look back at her again, but he knew she was watching him as she got out of the backseat and went up front to sit with Darry. She may have even said something to him, but the pressure change- from the car to the outdoors- had started Duane's ears ringing again.

The ER door slid open ahead of him. For a second Duane was blinded by the bright lights over the nurse's station. He felt warm for the first time in hours- both from the lights and from Buck's blood oozing through the back of his own jacket.


	11. Chapter 11

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

I'm a terrible person and I love nonlinear backstory.

**Everything that Glitters**

Eleven-

Kelli Jo closed her eyes and tried to make a picture come together in her mind with the things Tim had said back in the bar in Havana.

Rennick Johnson used to run card games in the back of his old man's pawn shop. How convenient. You could fence whatever you had on you to buy into the game. You could sell the leather jacket off of your back to get out the door again when you lost. Or you could take a beating. Ren always seemed more interested in doling those out than in collecting material goods.

She'd gone there a few times- sometimes with boys, sometimes to find boys. She couldn't remember, though, the particular time that Tim said she outdrank Duane Baird.

Her memory was full of holes. She knew her parents were dead, but she didn't remember being told about it. They had died early in the morning on New Year's Day. New Year's Eve was their wedding anniversary, and they'd been out dancing, she supposed. Her father liked to take her mother dancing. Way back when, her mother had been some stone fox and all the boys wanted to take her dancing. Her dad still liked to take her mom out and show her off.

Second week of December 1965, Kelli Jo was moved from the Beloit Industrial School for Girls to the Topeka State Hospital. She'd sobbed the whole way in the car because Topeka State was famous for castrating its male patients until a court ruling in 1961, but no one knew if there'd been any ruling yet on whether or not they could still sterilize women. Kelli assumed they were taking her there to perform a hysterectomy. She'd fought them on the way out the door to the car, and was restrained. She rode the 152 miles with her hands bound tight against her chest.

The insulin treatments lasted until Christmas Eve. She gained 40 pounds, but kept her ovaries. She got to stay in the hospital over the Christmas break rather than return to Beloit. She would have preferred Beloit, but no one asked her. At some point, someone told her that her parents had died in an accident, but she had no memory of it.

There were a lot of things from high school she no longer remembered either, although some of that she blamed on the way she drank. She found that she had retained the skills she learned- she could read, write, and was- at least- not any worse than before at math.

When she was released from Beloit in May of 1966- after returning there from Topeka when the second treatment had caused seizures and been deemed a failure- she had lost the 40 pounds again and needed new clothes.

She caught a ride to Lawrence with another girl who had just been released. She took Kelli Jo to a second-hand store in the college town to get new clothes because the ones she was wearing were 40 pounds too big. Kelli Jo stood in front of the racks and puzzled at the blouses and dresses. She found that she didn't know what she liked anymore. If she thought about it, she still knew how the clothes were made, but she didn't know if she liked the tight, daring blouses or the sweet and conservative sweaters. She bought in blacks and grays.

The only thing she knew for sure that she liked was the claddagh ring she bought for herself- arms encircling her finger, holding a heart. It suited her. The feeling was no different than before the hospital in Topeka- she was always holding out her heart in her hands, begging for someone to see that it wasn't just a gruesome, bloody thing.

* * *

In May of 1966, Duane had cashed in his points, got his discharge, and escorted his buddy and former accomplice back to Monterey. The dead Marine, a guy they all called Domino back in Tulsa, had girlfriend living on base. She was pregnant, but he wanted to wait to marry until he got back so they could have a proper wedding.

She had received word before Duane and the sailor accompanying him arrived on her doorstep, but she broke down anyway. She asked Duane if he'd seen Dom before. Duane lied and told her 'no'. He didn't like lying, but he had enough trouble shaking the image himself. He didn't feel like she needed to have it described.

The girl was hugely pregnant- like if he'd given her a push, she'd have rolled back into the house. She held the folded flag Duane had given her against her belly and looked past Duane at the sky as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"They're tossing me out of this place," she said. "We weren't married so I don't get any of his benefits. His mama don't like me. I don't know where I'm going to go."

"Back to Oklahoma," Duane said because that's where he was going.

"I ain't ever going back there," she said.

"Where then?" He asked. The other sailor was shifting on his feet. He wanted the encounter to end, but Duane couldn't make himself cut it off. She was from Tulsa, same as him, and so far away from home.

"Maybe Seattle. I was thinking Seattle. I got some cousins up there."

Duane nodded.

"How long you got?" He asked, referring to the baby.

She shrugged. "Any day. Any minute."

She smiled a little when she said it.

"Hold out another week," he told her. "I'm going to work here a while before I go back. Give me some time to work up a check."

"Tell that to her," the girl said, again referring to her belly.

"I'm sure she heard," Duane told her.

The baby didn't listen too well, but Duane gave Dominio's girlfriend his first drywalling check when she left the hospital. He put her and the baby on a bus to Seattle and never saw them again.

The girl told him she named the baby Nicki because Domino's real name was Dominic, and it seemed to match. Duane told her it was a nice tribute. He might have actually named a girl Domino if it was left up to him. He figured it was the hippies around the Bay starting to have an influence on him.

That's what he did for another six weeks-worth of paychecks- work all week and bum around San Francisco all weekend. He learned not to tell the kids gathering in the Haight that he'd been in the military. They assumed he was a biker from the tattoos on his fingers and arm. They shared their dope and their fortified wine. They all talked about finding something new out there, but when the darkness fell and the wine kicked in, they all talked about where they came from. No one else, it seemed, was from Oklahoma, but it made him homesick just the same.

After six weeks, Duane checked his mail back at the base. There was a short letter from Chris. Nothing earth-shattering was going on, just his grandpa wanted to know where the hell he was at. Duane bought a postcard with a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and wrote that that's where he was but that he was on his way home.

He drywalled his way back to Tahlequah and showed up on his grandparent's doorstep in his jeans and a t-shirt.

"Where's your uniform?" His grandfather asked him.

"I left it," Duane said. "I just left it there."

And his grandfather- who had stood watch in the Panama Canal Zone fifty-some years before- seemed to understand. His grandmother made him a pie, and he sat on the porch and drank beer with his grandpa and Chris.

"You staying or going back to Tulsa?" Chris asked.

"Back to Tulsa for a while," Duane said. He already had work lined up there, and he had some unfinished business he needed to check in on. He wanted to see Tim Shepard, make sure things were settled between them.

Chris, who was always mentally one step ahead of Duane, said, "You keep clear of Shepard. You slipped that noose once, baby brother. You don't get that chance twice."

"Who's Shepard?" Their grandfather asked.

"Not the kind his name would imply," Chris muttered.

Duane rolled his eyes at Chris and told his grandfather, "Just someone I used to know. He knew Domino…Dominic. I want to be the one to tell him."

Duane knew that Tim probably already knew because that's who Tim was. Tim always knew everything before anyone else. Hell, he probably already knew that Duane was coming.

* * *

Kelli Jo stood on the front porch facing the door with her eyes closed. Her mind was silent. The thoughts weren't moving too fast; they weren't moving at all. She could take whatever Ponyboy was going to throw at her, and he wouldn't be able to make her cry or run away.

She opened her eyes. The door was ajar. Darry had stepped around her and gone inside. She could smell the smoke from 35 years of cigarettes, the food on the stove in the kitchen, the lingering essence of shaving cream and Old Spice. The house still smelled like her dad.

She put her arm out and opened the door. Across the front room, her youngest brother was hunched over the dining room table reading something. From the kitchen, Darry saw her standing there frozen and tossed up hands in a _What?_ gesture. Ponyboy saw him and turned around.

"Honey, I'm home," she said in a soft, weak voice. She raised her eyebrow and forced a smile.

He grinned as he stood up- that kind of dumb, puppy dog, kid-smile that said he thought that now she was there everything was going to be alright. She pushed the door closed behind her as he came across the room.

He hugged her tight, but then pulled back to look at her, concerned.

"You didn't bring a bag? Ain't you sticking around?"

"I don't have a bag," she told him. "All my stuff is here."

And it had a deeper meaning to it, what she said. To Ponyboy, it meant she was home to stay. Everything she needed was right here in this house.

To her, it meant that she had nothing. She was wiped clean. She'd blown in from the cold without much more than a yellow pea coat and a purse full of pills (some of them hers, some of them stolen) she'd brought along to keep her numb in case her brother's reaction was bad. To her, it meant all her baggage was here.

Darry got that. She knew because he was pretending not to pay attention, fiddling in the kitchen with his back to them. Same old Darry- keeping his head down and pretending. Darry was a bigger pretender than Ponyboy, although he never wrote a thing down so no one would ever know it unless they had seen him- like she had- play along with those Socs all the time they were in school.

_Now he's pretending still_, she thought. _He's pretending he has a handle on all this_.

Ponyboy shifted in front of her. There was something he was afraid to say.

"Your room," he said. "All your stuff is packed up. It's upstairs."

There wasn't really an upstairs in a finished way. There was an attic with a bare subfloor. It was warm enough to sleep in because the chimney ran through it- exposed- but no one ever actually used it as a bedroom.

"That'll do," she told him. "I don't want to disrupt anything you've got going."

She was sure she heard Darry snort when she said it.

"Did you hear about Johnny and Dally?" Ponyboy asked.

Kelli Jo shook her head. Johnny Cade was the sweet, little Choctaw kid who grew up down the street from them. She had no idea who Dally was.

She just said, no, that Darry hadn't had a chance to tell her much yet. She decided to keep her memory- or lack thereof- to herself, and just let Ponyboy tell his tale.

* * *

a/n: It doesn't feel done, but it might be. We'll call it "complete" for now and just see what happens.


End file.
